Transgendered killer gets life (12 years) for vicious murder of former boyfriend; and other transgender happenings.

VANCOUVER - A transgendered woman who stabbed her former boyfriend 32 times and then beat him with a hammer has been handed life in prison without chance of parole for 12 years.

Thomas Forster, who’s in the middle of a sex change to become a woman, pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Zachary Waller on June 1, 2010.

Forster admitted to handcuffing Waller to the bed in her apartment and killing him.

The court heard that Waller left the relationship and when he told Forster he had another girlfriend she reached a breaking point and murdered the man.

The court heard that Forster was adopted from Mexico at the age of eight, two years later her adoptive mother died and as a teenager she wound up on Vancouver streets addicted to crack cocaine.

B.C. Supreme Court Judge Terance Schultes ruled that the guilty plea and her indication of remorse were factors in the decision to allow her to serve just 12 years before applying for parole.

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Ontario updates law to let transgenders change birth certificate without surgery

TORONTO — People who live as the opposite sex in Ontario can now change their gender on their birth certificates without first undergoing sex-change surgery.

New rules that have recently come into effect allow transgender people born in the province to apply to have the document amended by submitting a letter from a practising physician or a psychologist.

“Trans people’s identification will more easily match their presentation to the public.”

Ontario is the first province in Canada to scrap the requirement.

It stems from a ruling by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario this April in the case of a born-male woman known as XY.

The tribunal found the legislation requiring proof of “transsexual surgery” to alter birth documents to be discriminatory.

California bans gay ‘conversion’ therapy for minors

SACRAMENTO,- Governor Jerry Brown has signed a bill banning a controversial therapy that aims to reverse homosexuality in minors, his office announced on Sunday, making California the first state to ban a practice many say is psychologically damaging.

The move marked a major victory for gay rights advocates who say so-called conversion therapy, also called reparative therapy, has no medical basis because homosexuality is not a disorder.

Brown said in a short message on Twitter that he supported the bill because it “bans non-scientific ‘therapies’ that have driven young people to depression and suicide.”

The bill’s sponsor, state Senator Ted Lieu, a Democrat from Torrance, said the law was a gesture of remembrance for a man who committed suicide after undergoing the therapy.

The measure prohibits children and teens under 18 from undergoing sexual orientation change efforts. It received support from the California Psychological Association and the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, among others.

Several openly gay legislators gave emotional speeches in support of the measure, sharing how they were bullied because of their sexual orientation as youths.

All major medical and mental health organizations including the American Medical Association and the American Psychiatric Association have denounced the practice, supporters said.

Opponents said the bill encroached on the rights of parents to make choices for their children. They also said politicians should not regulate what they considered to be a matter for medical boards to decide.

The measure will take effect on Jan. 1.

“LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) youth will now be protected from a practice that has not only been debunked as junk science, but has been proven to have drastically negative effects on their well-being,” Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said in a statement.  MORE